Sequester causes cuts at Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency

Seventy percent of Oakland Livingston Human Service agency employees will have their hours cut, including Head Start teachers, and service hours will be reduced as the agency deals with $800,000 in cuts brought about by the so-called sequestration.

The federal budget cuts automatically set in motion for lack of action in Washington D.C. means services to seniors and low income families will be reduced further with offices closed on Fridays beginning next week, said OLHSA CEO Ron Borngesser, who is estimating funding cuts of about 5 percent.

Only the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program hours will continue operating as usual. All WIC locations will be open and available as usual.

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One of 1,100 Community Action Agencies around the United States, OLHSA works to improve the quality of life for people facing crisis while strengthening families, communities, seniors and youths, said Borngesser. More than 300,000 services were provided by OLHSA in 2011.

The 70 different programs offered by the community service agency include Head Start, providing bags of food, helping with utility bills to avoid shut-offs, a foreclosure assistance, and providing a weatherization program to reduce utility bills.

"When someone walks in the door, we do an assessment of where they are at and what they need," said Borngesser, noting that the agency already isn't able to keep up with the needs of the community.

The agency employees about 400 people in Oakland and Livingston counties; about 280 of them non-union. Borngesser said the agency wanted avoid cutting jobs and reducing services further, so opted to reduce hours from 40 to 26 a week.

Since the union voted not to accept reduction in hours, there will be three members laid off, Borngesser said. In addition, 10 positions will remain vacant.

Head Start programs are expected to maintain their enrollment of 1,600 pre-school children, with a teacher and teaching assistant in each class of no more than 17 children each, while reducing spending by 5 percent, Borngesser said.

So cuts will be made to teachers' hours, leaving them with no before-and after-school time with children and parents. Unionized teacher assistants will receive the children as they arrive and be with them until parents pick them up.

All OLHSA offices, including the main office in Pontiac, Ferndale and Howell, will be open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and closed on Fridays.

However, while all services will be available during the adjusted office hours, the capacity for programs to provide assistance may be reduced.

Borngesser is at a convention in Washington D.C. this week, where the human service agency leaders can talk to legislators about priorities.

However, in a telephone interview from the Capitol, Borngesser said he is not optimistic that cuts will be reversed or things will get better for agencies that serve the poor.

"The politics is so polarized .... and we are caught in the middle," Borngesser said .

"The military and domestic programs, like OLHSA, are 17 percent of budget. The rest is Social Security and Medicare; entitlements and are 73 percent of the money that they are not ready to trim.

"They keep trimming us and the military has been taking cuts for quite a long time. This is the first time the cuts were across the board. This is not a good way to do it.

"The sequestration affects OLHSA's ability to provide assistance to those who need it most. Just as everyone in our nation feels the pain of these cuts, so will OLHSA and our clients. "

He said the number of students in Head Start is only 40 percent of the eligible 3,500 children in Oakland County, but funding has not been increased enough to add more classes for several years.

If the federal government does not resolve these cuts and agree on a long-term budget solution, OLHSA may take further cost-reduction measures,, Borngesser said.